College Football: NIU battling towards Fiesta Bowl

DEKALB — Northern Illinois football players threw oranges at the video screen last year when ESPN commentators said they weren’t worth of their Orange Bowl selection.

What do you throw for the Fiesta Bowl?

A year ago, NIU didn’t crack the BCS rankings until the penultimate tally. This year, the Huskies (7-0) made the first poll, coming in at No. 18.

“I didn’t even know we were ranked this high until this morning,” defensive end Perez Ashford said Tuesday. “My girlfriend told me.”

That No. 18 ranking is one spot behind fellow outsider Fresno State (6-0), which squeaked out two early one-point home wins. A flood could help the Bulldogs steal a BCS berth from NIU; Fresno’s Sept. 14 road game at the Pac-12’s Colorado (3-3) was washed out, wiping out one of the Bulldogs’ biggest hurdles. Fresno plays only one winning team (4-3 Wyoming) before a possible rematch against Boise State in the Mountain West title game. Fresno edged the Broncos 41-40 at home on Sept. 20.

Louisville dropped from No. 8 to No. 20 with last week’s loss to Central Florida, which is huge for NIU and Fresno. If a non-automatic qualifier is ranked higher than an AQ champ (Louisville, at No. 20, is now the highest-ranked team in the American Athletic, formerly Big East), the best non-AQ team has to simply be ranked in the top 16 to go to a BCS bowl. If not, the Huskies or Bulldogs would have to crack the top 12.

That makes it likely that either NIU or Fresno will crack the BCS this year. That means the Fiesta Bowl, which has the last pick, and a possible date with Baylor, which has scored at least 69 points in five of its six games.

“We’re really happy that we’re getting this opportunity so early in the season,” NIU offensive lineman Matt Krempel said. “We have to win out of course (but) if we keep doing the things we’re supposed to do and the things we know we’ve got to do, we can reach our goal again.”

BCS bowls were never supposed to be an NIU goal. Or even a Mid-American Conference one. When the Huskies rose to No. 10 in 2003 by starting 7-0 with wins over Maryland, Alabama and Iowa State, they ran into injuries, lost two MAC games and didn’t go to any bowl at 10-2. Afterward, then-coach Joe Novak said he didn’t think the Huskies ever had a BCS chance.

“We’re just trying to make sure we don’t fall into the same path and make sure we keep our head on straight and keep going the way that we have been and keep working hard,” Krempel said.

The rules have been changed to make it easier for outsiders since then. NIU took advantage last year when it didn’t even know it had a chance until a rash of upsets in the next-to-last weekend.

Now the Huskies — whose biggest obstacles are Ball State (7-1), Toledo (4-3) and the MAC title game — know they’ve got a shot early. But coach Rod Carey is downplaying that BCS ranking.

“The rankings, right now, I don’t know what they mean other than we better go one game at a time,” Carey said. “Before we were ranked No. 18, we had better have gone one game at a time, so it doesn’t change us a whole lot. But it’s nice.”

It’s nice to know that the Huskies are playing for more than a MAC title and just any bowl game; they are playing for a chance to play a top-10 team.

“Last year, everything worked out,” safety Dechane Durante said. “We went to a BCS game, so we know if we take care of our job, the same thing (can) happen this year.”